The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1887-08-21

ndu not nedru WOfu since we started,
and was pretty anxious-Molly was
not well when left her; but there was
no choice about it. / had to go; the
women were with her, and there was
doctor in the town, and Clayton had
good horse, and we had to do about
that as we had done about every thing
else--take our chances
i shan't forget that day. Along in
the middle of the morning a norther
began to blow. 1t did not snow, al
though the sky thickened up with
gray, woolly-looking clouds, low down
and threatening. You never felt a
norther? A wind that goes through
your bones, that clutches your heart
and stops your brain, that breaks you
up, body and soul. You don't know
any thing about cold till you've felt
one. If there is such a thing as a
frozen hell, that's where these winds
come from. 1t isn't pure cold; it's
ghost cold, and all the internal regions
let loose, yelling and laundering up in
the awful emptiness over your head
and round you.
Love the prairies' Well, you can
love them good deal better on paper
than anywhere else. But there's an
awful fascination about them, some
how. It's like the sea. A man that's
got his living on them for ten years Is
fit for nothing else in Gods world. He
can't get away. He's spoiled for every
thing else under Heaven. He's got to
have the sky and = chance to breathe.
It's about all there is to get, better
than he can have anywhere else; but
it's sure fact that so much he's got to
have whatever else gets left. It's like
a poem, may bel amt much on
rhyme" myself-driving across them in
warm weather; horses fresh and well
fed, with big tent and spring cots
for camping and supply wagon
with every thing you can think of
but ice, and may be that; all the
world a-ripple with summer green; the
south wind surging like warm ocean,
and the sky blue and soft and arching
away up to the great White Throne.
That's one thing. To 60 trailing along,
horses dead beat and half starved, pull
ing big wagon through sloughs up to
the axles or over frozen ruts that wiring
every bolt in the concern and every
bone in your body; with mile after
mile of dead grass stretching out to
the edge of the world with buzzards
swinging up out of nowhere, more like
something internal than any decent
live thing; with coyotes yelping and
crying all night--that's another thing,
and the kind that doesn't get talked
about much. Perhaps you remember
that item in last winters newspapers,
a half-dozen lines or so-two families
frozen in Texas norther, horses, dogs,
and all just as they stood.
That night we went into camp ten
miles from home. There was ravine
and plenty of brush, and the horses
were ready to drop in their tracks, and
that last ten miles was one of the things
that couldn't be done. So we got our
fires made and our horses fed and
sheltered as well as we could, and put
some heart into ourselves with buffalo
steak and hot coffee; and the rest of
them packed themselves into the
wagon. Some one had to stand guard
and keep the fires going, and took
the contract.
1t wasn't a dark night. There was a
goodish bit of moon behind the
clouds, and it made a gray kind of
light over every thing. We were at
the bottom of dry canyon that ran
east and west, and the wind did not
reach us. 1t screeched and screamed
over our heads, and through it all
there was kind of moaning roar. rs
if we were at the bottom of a tide as
deep as the stars are high. got to
thinking about old times away back, of
one Sunday night just before we were
married. l had gone East little sooner
than we expected and had to wait for
her things to be finished. We went to
church that night. A keen, crisp, still
nightit was, when the sleigh-runners
squeaked on the snow and the NOON
light traced the shadows of the elms on
the white ground as if they had been
put in in black drawing. The church
was warm and bright and they hadn't
taken down the Christmas green's yet, so
the air was full of the smell of them--that
spicy, haunting smell, that seems as if
it came somehow from world before
this. 1t was years since l had smelled
it, and sat and listened to the music
and looked at the people, with their
comfortable clothing and faces that
were cheerful, not worn and wrinkled
with care and weather. Molly was an
awfully pretty girl in those days; all
pink and white like an apple blossom,
somehow. And fighting to keep awake
out there in the heart of Kansas prairie
l got to thinking about her as she was
then and how she had changed. Skin
the color of tanned leather now, and
that wild, hungry look in her blue eyes
as if they were always staring into the
dark for something that frightened
her. And both her children dead, and
not even spray of the pine she loved
so, nor breath of music; nothing but
dirt floor and log walls that did all
that was expected of them If they kept
the weather out
Somebody hailed over the top of the
bluff.
"What camps thatp"
"Kenyon and mates"
81 lowed it was" -scrambling down
the sides of the gulch on his sure-footed
mule-"You Kenyon? News for you.
A kid up to your ranch, ten days old.
All hands doing well yesterday morn
ing"
The rest reused themselves, sleepily.
He had got off the trail, and seeing our
smoke had struck for it. We knew
and he knew that the chances were
that it saved his life; but he swallowed
his coffee and smoked his pipe and
turned in with the rest as ii getting
lost in a norther was one of the
things that happened, of course, to
every man.
Then l sat and thought while, and
finally reused out Madison.
"You take my turn" said to him;
.I'm going home"
mot brute that will travel"
you'll pass in your checks before
morning"
= l. -.